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Hosed
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Business New Haven
7/12/1999
By: BNH
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To hose down opposition to the proposed Long Wharf retail mall, City Hall has thrown downtown New Haven merchants a pretty meager bone.
They seem to like it just fine.
That conclusion was inescapable following a July 8 meeting between Mayor John DeStefano Jr. and something known as the "United Merchants Network" at the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce.
This group, apparently a more palatable successor to the explicitly anti-mall "Connecticut Cities Association" headed by Barrie Ltd.'s John Isaacs and several other like-minded retailers, had gone, hat in hand, to Mayor John DeStefano Jr. in hopes of extracting a few crumbs from the table at which New England Development and the Fusco Corp. will have gorged themselves on $85 million in public subsidy to build the $492 million Long Wharf mall.
The downtown merchants asked for some money for their group, a commitment to marketing downtown, more shopper-friendly parking, increased police presence, cracking down on street vendors and panhandlers.
What they got, summed up briskly by the mayor at a July 8 meeting with about 75 merchants at the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce, was mainly a rundown on city initiatives already on the books for facade improvements, a Church Street "gateway," streetscape improvements to lower Chapel Street and promises of a "quick, mini-marketing/promotion campaign" under the auspices of the Town Green Special Services District.
Some attendees thought this a pretty thin gruel. But most of the merchants were either cowed into submission or have simply come to regard the mall as a fait accompli.
As the kids say, whatever. A strong, united cadre of downtown business people with an explicit anti-mall message could have galvanized the energy of those who think giving Nordstrom's $20 million to please, pretty please come take our money is a pretty stupid idea - and the many more who ask, simply, "Show us an example of where a new mall didn't gut downtown commerce."
In business as in life, people usually get what they deserve.
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